Understanding requirements for designers

ISSN 2348 – 0319 International Journal of Innovative and Applied Research (2014), Volume 2, Issue (6): 134- 143
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Journal home page: http://www.journalijiar.com INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
OF INNOVATIVE AND
APPLIED RESEARCH
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Understanding Requirements for Designers
PuteriFadzlineTamyez, Norzanah Mat Nor, Syed Jamal AbdulNasir Syed Mohamad
ArshadAyub Graduate Business School, UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Shah Alam, 40450, Malaysia.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Abstract:
This paper demonstrates how a content analysis method may be used to help understand the requirements and needs
in a designer. This is an attempt to explore and rationalizes the methodological concerns regarding content analysis.
The findings are highlighted in a thematic way to convey how designers can face the escalating challenges to
develop the proper skills, awareness and confidence. These are requirements of being a true designer with the
influence of a firm‟s vision and mission. This study is relevant to design practice in terms of its potentials of
assisting designers in balancing their design and management skills in the market turbulence of today.
Key Words:Design, Management skills, Content analysis, Designer
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Introduction
According to Communities (2009), there are many designers that have a limited amount of experiences, skills and
knowledge in the developments of design. Shortage of qualified designers is one of the challenges faced by furniture
manufacturers to pursue towards the ODM (Original Design Manufacturing) category. The traditional view of the
definition of designers are looked upon as product designers to pursue in creating stylish products and only involved
in the end-product of the process as stated by Norman (2004) and through the semantic dimension (Dell‟era &
Verganti, 2009). However, more designers are involved with the design process as opposed to the end-product of
this process (Brown, 2008; Norman, 2004). Every marketing office would tend to agree to designers that the product
must be simple to manufacture, original, innovative and cheap (Filippetti, 2008). Designers play the central role in
the manufacturing and innovation process, and therefore design innovation must be well integrated and
synchronized (Wrigley & Bucolo, 2011).
However, designers are no longer considered as the only key person in designing the product but by assimilation of
various stakeholders; users, firms, communication media, cultural centres, universities and many more as
emphasized by (Dell'Era, Marchesi, & Verganti, 2008). The interaction in the design process signifies that a
designer needs to take account on all these elements in order to embark on design innovation (Filippetti, 2006).
There are at least three areas of interaction in the first conceptual phase which are marketing, product managing and
research and development. The consistency of the final results to the original idea must always be evaluated by the
designer and the model is further passed to the engineering and production process once the model is approved
(Filippetti, 2008). A rich interaction is involved in design innovation where it involves a cross-disciplinary process
facilitated by the designer to bring together expertise from various disciplines which include management,
engineering, and marketing (Communities, 2009). According to Filippetti (2006), lack of coordination with the
production will occur if the product fails in the conceptual phase even though it looked promising in the early stages.
Therefore, this mutual relationship needs to be nurtured although it takes a large amount of time.
There is a vast amount of literature on the relationship between designers and firm managers (Ravasi & Lojacono,
2005; Ravasi, Marcotti, & Stigliani, 2008; Von Stamm, 1998; Walker, 1990). However, there is a common
misunderstanding between designers and managersdue to a lack of awareness of the potential commercial returns of
investment in design and how they view projects as one-off investments rather than part of a long-term journey
(Maciver, 2011). Managers are not familiar and well-equipped with visual information, fuzzy problems, and
subjective assessments as they are trained on analytical studies in business schools as opposed to designers who
prefer to experiment, think laterally and apply visual literacy (Almendra, 2004; Davide Ravasi, 2008; Mozota,
2006b; Stamm, 2004).

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Designers have limited knowledge on management concepts and of management as science (Mozota, 2006a) . She
added on the significance in their communication skills which include the capacity to learn, to dialogue, to make
synthesis and to generate a vision (Mozota, 2003). Unfortunately this interaction in Malaysia is purely based on
creativity, but not the overall relationship. Communities (2009) also revealed that most designers view themselves
from the artistic value as opposed to business, innovation and artistic elements. This describes the perception of
business people as they understand design as a noun, and designers accepts design execution as a verb (Maciver,
2011).
Therefore, it is important that designers ensure ideas presented as understandable they are for the engineers and
managers to acknowledge based on the latter‟s logical thinking. Furthermore, designers should educate themselves
on different technological terminologies applied by engineers and managers to ensure better communication among
them (Anssary, 2006). However, one can become a designer if one educates oneself to design in a higher level
(Lawson, 2006). Design thinking is the only design method which applies this approach. In this situation, design
innovation can be evaluated by non-designers (Matthews & Wrigley, 2011). Design has become so important to be
left only to the designers (Brown, 2008). However, Nevertheless, some business people have already become
designers as a valuable asset to face unpredictable daily phases (Martin, 2004).
1 Purpose
By using 2013 furniture firms interviews from the Malaysian furniture industry, this study aims to demonstrate a
qualitative content analysis to help understand the designers‟ experience and to explore how designers perceive
issues that challenge them to develop the right skills for future success.
2 Methodology
Benefits can be gained from open-ended questions where responses could assist to explore a number of issues
(Moser & Kalton, 1987). Thus, it is interesting to point out several quotes in these responses from self-administered
questionnaires and therefore it is likely to use open-ended questions to make a better statistical statement (McColl et
al., 2001).Open-ended questions act as a safety guard and enable more exploration that may not be covered by close-
ended questions, apart from identifying new issues (O'Cathain & Thomas, 2004). Content analysis method is the
most suitable approach for this exploration (Patton, 1988). It is also considered a systematic approach that enables
words of text to be concentrated into smaller categories (Holsti, 1969; Krippendorff, 1980). Precisely, content
analysis as described by Patton (1988) as a process that identifies, codes, and categorizes the primary patterns that
can be found in the data. Besides that, this approach is appropriate in focusing on groups, institutions, or social
organizations (Weber, 1990). Therefore, this study focuses on counting the frequencies on the most-used keywords
(Zipf, 1949). The categories are built on the frequencies of codes which emerged from furniture firms‟ open-ended
comments.
3 Data Collection and Analyses
Secondary data were also applied in this study. The efficiency and practicality of secondary data could sustain and
covers identified and unidentified literature on the particular topic (Novak, 1996). However, defining the objective
of research and research design is important before embarking on secondary data (McCaston, 1998). Thus, this
research aims to explore the issues on the requirements of designers in the furniture industry particularly among
Malaysian SMEs. Content analysis determines a clearer understanding and meaning of the data received from
respondents (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982) and this coding begins by conceptualizing the data (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
Organizing and categorizing labels are the next step in coding in order to decrease the number of concepts involved.
Predetermined concepts will emerged base on similar meanings and characteristics (Weber, 1990).
4 Findings and Discussion
The furniture industry in Malaysia examined in this study is the small, medium, and large sized firms with
approximately 1155 firms representing all the states in the country. The composition has 93.5 percent Chinese, with
the highest percentage of respondents in a range of 40 to 49 years old among managers and owners. Their
experiences are 21 to 30 years in the industry working in companies of more than 20 years. The majority of these
respondents are among the medium sized firms in a range of 101 to 250 employees and large sized firms as minority
in this study.
Table 1 illustrates that the overall total number of valid complete respondents on the questionnaire survey in 2012,
which is 269 samples. Of this 49 managers provided responses to the open-ended question “What is your
requirement for designers?” Some comments contain more than one code.

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Table 2 suggests codes categorized to explore the common elements concerning requirements for designers. Four
themes are developed out of the codes. Groups 1 to 4 deal with manufacturing knowledge, followed by market-
oriented, interest in furniture, as well as creativity and innovativeness.
The section below discusses themes that emerged from this study that are considered important elements required
for a designer particularly in the furniture industry. The most important criteria in a designer are creativity and
innovativeness, followed by manufacturing knowledge, being market-oriented and one‟s interest in furniture.
4.1 Creativity and Innovation
Half of the participants (48 percent) reported that designers must obtain creative abilities not only to explore
potential customers‟ needs, but also to develop revolutionary new products.
This result is similar to Verganti‟s opinion (2010) cited in (McCullagh, 2010) who stated that:
“Designers have become less visionary. They have spent the last 10 years getting close to consumers and
trying to become businessmen, and have lost their visions.”
The Malaysian Furniture Promotion Council (MFPC) plays an outstanding role in emphasizing the industry on
design excellence. This has created a network with international furniture designers in sharing their valuable
experiences through seminars and workshops (Council, 2013) . Apart from that, design competitions are also held
annually in the Malaysian International Furniture Fair (MIFF) in collaboration with MIFF SdnBhd and EFE Expo
SdnBhd to instill original creativity and innovation among young designers. Furthermore, winning designers are
sponsored by MFPC and MATRADE in furniture fairs such as I Saloni, Milan, Italy.
Therefore it is a challenge for design managers to instill visions in designs (McCullagh, 2010). This is supported by
Yen and Wei (2009) which describes these criteria as a combination of what is coined as visionary capabilities.
Mozota (2003) describes these designer‟s abilities deeper in the perspective of sense of colour (tactile), imagination,
sense of detail, sense of material, and quality of visualization. The role of designers are very different before and
after the internet era, where designers have accessed to information in seconds (Lynn, 2013). Therefore, talent and
skills need to be consistently nurtured and motivated among designers (McCullagh, 2010).
Creativity and innovative ability as well as designer‟s relationship to the client‟s firm constitutes the aspects of a
designer‟s knowledge. Both levels of creativity and familiarity give impact to a designer‟s person. Designers who
have a combination of low levels of creativity and high level of familiarity will not provide any form of innovative
ideas and instead would choose to secure him/herself to prominent firms. Whereas, low levels of creativity and
familiarity indicates inexperienced designers who not only have limited knowledge of the client, but also lack
potential to be creative. Alternatively, high levels of creativity coupled with low level of familiarity would create a
“random walk experiment” which means innovative solutions even though it might not suit the requirement of the
firm‟s mission. High creativity and familiarity ultimately creates an innovative designer that will fit with the strategy
of a company (Jevnaker, 1998).
Although it is important that designers reinvent themselves as designing furniture, it involves beyond aesthetics,
touch and feel. There are not many Malaysian products that are inspired by cultural elements. It is discovered that
more work needs to be done to reinvent Malaysian design (Gomes & Shian, 2012). Designing furniture is in fact an
iterative approach where they start by prototyping, getting response, revisiting the problem, and evolving solutions
(Martin, 2004). The unrestricted current production systems will enhance these capabilities apart from focusing
solutions beyond style and new user experience (Yen & Wei, 2009). Table 3 discusses the advantages, criticalities
and solutions of designers.
However it is argued that design is too important to be left to designers (Neumeier, 2005). Design in the early days
is isolated from the management. Now business is realizing that design is a skill or strategy and a way of options to
solutions that have never been seen. Today business and design need to work each other in a common language.
Rejection of ideas, lack of recognition and excessive exercising of freedom is common in the design process. As a
result, relationship between designers and managers are very important to ensure the success of the firm and project
progress.
As stated by Phillip Yap (2013) cited in (Lynn, 2013);
“In order to make a product successful, you need integration – cross-disciplinary collaboration in design,
content and technology. Design in itself is weak; you need to work with other disciplines in order to be
successful.”
Nevertheless, Verganti (2009) argued and revealed that it does not purely depend on designers, but the
manufacturers need to have an extraordinary capacity to indulge, explore and synthesize new design languages
which are purely not customer-driven. Not only that, they need to play a key role in developing rich network of
interactions with users, suppliers, other firms, training institutes and involving talented designers all over the world

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in brokering languages and proposing new meanings. The Italian design companies have never looked to the market
in the conservative way as they always find new ideas and talented designers from all over the world. That is the
main reason young and unknown foreigners come to Italy introducing their dreams to the Italian manufacturers
without fear.
4.2 Manufacturing knowledge
About one-third of the participants (28 percent) were of the view that tacit knowledge is essential in product
innovation such as coordination, capabilities, and design presentation skills. These are factors necessary to execute a
smooth operation of innovation (Yen & Wei, 2009). According to Filippetti (2006), design is considered
meaningless without having the capacity to be manufactured. This indicates that manufacturing knowledge has to be
taken into account among designers in carrying out design innovation.The types of knowledge involved by designers
are the normative sphere (how the product should be) and the positive sphere (how the project will be). Most
designers are only involved in the normative sphere, both in concept and prototyping (Filippetti, 2008).
Manufacturing knowledge that need to be acquired from a designer are modeling technologies, material finishing,
mechanical design, and supply chain (Yen & Wei, 2009). This knowledge is critical for designers as they are able to
sense the major problems they might face on technical constraints during a production process (Anssary, 2006)
Even though computer-aided design is imperative for furniture manufacturing (Communities, 2009), most of the
designers involved in the furniture industry do not relate with the technicality of the product as expressed by
Participant No.20. Participant No.44 also agreed with Participant No. 20 and strongly stated that manufacturing
capability is crucial in a designer. This was his stand. “When a student make any design of chair, make sure the
design must be practical to structure. Structure of a chair is important.” Participant No. 12 also firmly believes that:
“concept furniture is to sell image of a company but must face reality to design that can be sold is the key.”
These statements indicate that designers need more experience and knowledge in terms of manufacturing and
production, in order to introduce design in their innovation process. Hence, the potential of design will be fully
exploited (Communities, 2009). In fact a Resource Centre will be provided by MFPC to provide computer-aided
technology (CAD) to ensure SMEs to fully utilize this software for their manufacturing process (Council, 2013).
This will produce more freedom for designers to create quality product designs (Anssary, 2006). Apart from that,
more challenges are faced by designers in instilling sustainable materials in their designs. MIFF Furniture Design
Competition is held annually during the Malaysian International Furniture Fair (MIFF) to attract more aspiring and
established Malaysian designers to not only incorporate Malaysian identity through the elements of culture,
ergonomics and functionality, but also for sustainability (Omar, 2013). This demands a higher level of knowledge of
manufacturing among Malaysian designers.
However a study by (Anssary, 2006) indicates that over 42 percent of designers have the reluctance to bear technical
processes in their minds as it will hamper their creativity in the design process, as opposed to only 4 percent of
designers who believe that deeper knowledge of manufacturing knowledge will greatly enhance their creation of
new design ideas. Most marketers prefer external to internal designers for their broad experiences across the field of
application, sectors, and industrial. There are various ways on how manufacturers hire designers. Some
manufacturers decide to contract designers who are reputable and have established their own brands. This will
guarantee a higher potential to succeed and further solidify the company‟s brand (Lindahl, 2009).
The ability to easily grasp industrial skills is an advantage for a firm that hires in-house designers (Bougrain &
Haudeville, 2002). More so other manufacturers will take young, fresh designers to focus more on publicity, peer-
appreciation and brand building instead of pursuing for financial success (Lindahl, 2009). This situation has been
affirmed by other scholars (Kristensen & Lojacono, 2002; Von Stamm, 1998). These researchers also focused on the
issue of choosing between in-house designers and outsourced designers.
There have been firms that prefer to recruit new designers regularly, while others prefer long-term relationships with
designers. Several designers employed particular contracts from other countries as this broadens the innovation
capability in a company (Dell'Era & Verganti, 2010). It is a fresh and aggressive way to compete in the market by
distinguishing the reason people buy products (Verganti, 2010). Most designers in Italy are foreigners who are able
to combine and integrate the local and global contexts of brokering of knowledge (Dell 'Era, 2010). A successful
designer is largely dependent on one‟s most contacts with the rest of the firm and one‟s ability to integrate with the
respective departments in a firm (Communities, 2009).
Maciver (2011) revealed advantages and disadvantages of hiring in-house designers and external designers as
stipulated in Table 5. However, Ravasi (2008) suggested that having both external and internal designers pose
advantages and disadvantages as it is important to improve the relationship and collaboration between managers and
designers. The company‟s capability to use design strategically is the most critical and not merely depending on the
creative design skills of a designer (Jevnaker, 1998; Kristensen & Lojacono, 2002).

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It is undeniably challenging for designers today in carrying various roles including in tackling environmental
problems. This is because 75 percent of the environmental problems are determined at the design stage (Diehl &
Brezet, 2004). Producing sustainable product design requires a deep knowledge of furniture manufacturing as it not
only enhances the environmental problem, but also the efficiency and quality of the product (Crul & Diehl, 2006).
4.3 Market-oriented
A total of 14 percent of the respondents said that market-oriented must be a part of the requirements from a designer.
Business and market knowledge is an essential part that needs to be understood by designers (Yen & Wei, 2009).
This notion is agreed by Filippetti (2006) that designers need to have a higher awareness on cost-objective of the
product and the targeted market segment. Apart from that, there are a vast amount of elements that need to be
acquired by designers before embarking on the design journey which involve the catalogue, the distribution system,
the competitors, the reference market, the productive potential and the economic potential.
Most companies indicated that designers must be market-oriented in applying incremental innovation. Therefore, it
is essential for a designer to acquire design knowledge in terms of basic operation and skills, tacit knowledge and
design strategic knowledge (Yen & Wei, 2009). In order to adapt quickly to customer demands, entrepreneurs need
to be market-oriented (Mamat & Ismail, 2011). Production of expected volumes by the firm needs to be foreseen by
the designer to avoid any mistakes on the selection of expensive processes and products. Therefore, the amount of
investment by a firm largely depends on the marketing strategy (Filippetti, 2006).
4.4 Interest in furniture
The remaining 10 percent thought that designers must be interested to furniture. According to Filippetti (2008),
designers must acquire an elective affinity with our philosophy in order to bridge the gap between the firm and the
designer. Therefore, it is a necessity that the relationship between manufacturers and designers must be particularly
close. This is coupled by with long-last collaboration from ten to twenty years to develop trust between them. As a
result, more active involvement in the process of decision making can be carried out among designers to ensure a
richer integration among managers and designers (Valipoor & Ujang, 2011).
Participant No. 79 reiterated that in the present competitive business environment, a designer must be interested in
the culture of the furniture industry. He stressed the importance of this element, “Not afraid to work long hours and
the environment of the production”.
Participant No. 25 had similar view. “They should have the knowledge of basic joinery on woodworking”.
It is important to be interested in furniture in order to gain customers‟ satisfaction through the features of functional
design (Lee, 2010). However, „empathy‟ needs to be instilled in every designer where designers are interested to
understand the user (Desmet, 2008; Martin, 2004). This can be carried out through watching, listening, and relating
to the user. According to Maciver (2011), designers have a multi-tasking role of not only embracing a wide range of
design assignments but also marketing-related tasks. However, this is carried out without any formal training and
purely based on experience and perseverance. Hence, this results to low levels of networking, coordination failures
and weak ability to influence, and market and the power to lobby. Therefore, designers need to have a personal
interest and responsibility in the any firm or consultancy company. Meanwhile, some firms elect designers to
become design managers who carry a much wider scope of management skills. The requirements include design
competency in business words as well as the ability to:
 Run a team and manage a budget
 Place design in the organization charts and methods
 Communicate about design
 Develop tools in order to work with marketing on brand
 Work with R&D and engineers on innovation management
 Set up an “advance design” workshop and forecasting
 Hire designers and other experts for design research to write mission statement for their personnel
 Perform as leaders
It also includes participation in strategy formulation in order to accompany organizational change (Mozota, 2006b).
According to Dell‟era and Verganti (2009), a successful design-intensive company is dependent on the management
of their designers. However interested the designers are, opportunities for designers to be involved in the design

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process are scarce among furniture companies in Malaysia. This is due to the common act of manufacturers to copy
other designs (Valipoor & Ujang, 2011) and putting sales on the highest hierarchy. Consequently, the role of
designers becomes powerless and insubstantial in the Malaysian design society.
5 Conclusion
Lynn (2013) revealed that designers must not only aim high but work from ground up. By thinking big, designers
must not be afraid if they are not able to capture the market without a true identity. According to Gomes and Shian
(2012), not only it is important for manufacturers to accept the designer‟s point of view, but they also should put
high emphasis on promoting the designers‟ brands. Therefore, a synergy of good understanding of technology that is
related to the field, knowledge on aesthetics and an understanding on the customers‟ needs are requirements of a
designer (Lawson, 1990). Gomes and Shian (2012) also added that good and mutual relationship must be developed
between manufacturers and designers by undergoing the process from designing and production to branding and
marketing. The strongest designer is when he or she is able to generate pleasurable and exciting sensations in design
products (Demirbilek & Sener, 2003).
6 Limitations of study and suggestions for future research
Managers of Malaysian furniture industry have revealed rich knowledge and experiences from their activities which
signify the limitation of this study. Precisely, only one industry is involved in gathering the respective data.
Therefore, a multi-industry is encouraged for future research which may provide a diverse set of data, comments and
conclusions.
Additionally, a cross-sectional study has been conducted which draws upon the limitation of this research unlike the
assessment of longitudinal approach. Therefore, a longitudinal approach is suggested for future research to enable a
longer time trajectory which would provide lengthy and multiple comments which could create more comprehensive
data results.
7 Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the help and support of the Malaysian Furniture Promotion Council
(MFPC), Malaysian Timber Industry Board (MTIB) and fellow respondents who participated in this study.
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9 Appendix
Table 1: Overall total number of valid complete respondents
Open-ended comments 2012: What are your requirements for designers?
Respondents 269
Open-ended comments 49
Codes generated 4
Table 2: Common elements on requirements for designers
Ranking Themes Code counts Percentage (%)
1 Manufacturing knowledge 14 28
2 Market-oriented 7 14
3 Interested in furniture 5 10
4 Creativity and Innovation 24 48
Table 3: The advantages, criticalities and solutions of designers
Advantage Criticalities Solutions
Autonomy of the designer and
“openness to the tide of ideas
outside”
Designers are key in transferring
solutions (concepts, technologies,
ideas and languages developed in
other industries)
Designers have also other
competences which can be exploited
by the firm
Close coordination with specific
firm factors (market and production
factors)
Conservation of firm style and
philosophy over time and over
different design consultants
Long term relationships
Deep involvement of the designers
in the firm‟s processes (production,
marketing)
Exclusive contracts
 Trust
(Yen & Wei, 2009)
Table 5: Advantages and disadvantages of hiring in-house designers and external designers

143
Advantages Disadvantages
In-house Cost-effective
Accessible
Easier to coordinate with other in-
house departments
Retention of internal control
Designer develops understanding of
company
Goals and values of designers and
business people are shared
Stagnation – limited in scope for
innovation/new ideas
Lack of specialized expertise
Lack of need for permanent design
division
Internally focused – loses touch
with external developments
External Lack of (internal)
creativity/new ideas
Access to specialist expertise
Relieves work load
Additional staff/skills accessible
Ability to change and explore
other options
Lack of understanding of company
issues
Problems of ready accessibility
Difficulties in coordinating with
internal departments
Confidentiality/privacy issues
Lack of internal vision in assessing
the design work
„Not-invented-here‟ syndrome
Problems with manufacturing
externally designed products
Loss of control
Credibility gap (if design fails to
match company „style‟)
(Maciver, 2011)

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